SWAMPSCOTT — The seawall underneath the Mission on the Bay restaurant at 141 Humphrey St. partially collapsed at approximately 1:45 p.m. Thursday.
Community members gathered on the sidewalk to watch as the gravel wall and exterior railing crumbled onto the beach.
Patrons were eating lunch inside the restaurant at the time of the seawall’s collapse. Those inside were evacuated and sustained no injuries, according to Fire Chief Graham Archer.
“It was a pretty significant collapse,” Archer said. “We evacuated the building and disconnected the utilities. Right now we are waiting for some engineering expertise to give us some advice on what the next steps are.”
Department of Public Works Director Gino Cresta said the collapse was likely caused by erosion over time. With high tides expected overnight, Cresta said further erosion could collapse the gravel seawall entirely.
“The biggest concern right now is the tide coming up,” Cresta said.
Cresta added that after speaking to contractors who built Mission on the Bay, he did not think the restaurant will collapse.
“[The contractor] said steps have been taken in anticipation of something like this, but we haven’t confirmed that yet,” Cresta said.
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald was on the shore alongside Graham and Cresta, examining the damage.
In June, the Town of Swampscott purchased the Hawthorne by the Sea property next to Mission on the Bay. The collapsing portion of the seawall is not owned by the town, and Fitzgerald said the town recently reinforced its portion of the wall with concrete to mitigate the risk of collapse.
“It’s a historic wall. We’re going to work with the Army Corps of Engineers and the property owner to ensure that we address the public safety issues and the immediate issues with the structural integrity of the wall,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald speculated that the wall’s collapse was likely caused by years of deferred maintenance. He added that the town will ensure the wall’s structural integrity before starting any new construction in the area.
“These walls have a life cycle, and this one just reached the end of its lifecycle. We do have to be mindful that they need maintenance and this may be related to years of lack of maintenance,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re going to finish up this section, and we’ll continue to focus on the town-owned section. We’re very concerned about ensuring that we have a structure that is solid.”
Mission on the Bay will be closed over the weekend while private and town-employed engineers repair the wall. Owner Marty Bloom said he was out at lunch when he started getting frantic calls about the collapse.
Bloom said the restaurant itself is completely intact. He added that he knew the wall was eventually going to crumble, but thought it would last another 20 years or so.
“The building was designed for hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and for the fact that it sits on a precarious seawall that’s as old as can be. So the structural integrity of the building is still 100 percent as we’re talking about right now,” Bloom said. “The building has structural integrity. There’s little to no weight on that far wall, it’s really been distributed out so it’s back to the middle of the building. We engineered this building for the long haul.”
As of 6 p.m. Thursday, Bloom said he was in the process of temporarily moving weekend reservations to one of his other restaurants.
